She turned and went quickly into the bushes and soon she came out bearing the miserable arms of the Rusty Knight and the glorious sword.
"These are all that were in my fathers' castle for many years," she said, "and I took them when I went away and the white hart brought me to his own castle. But though these are big for me, they will be small for you."
And Harding looked at them and laughed his short laugh. "The casque alone will serve," he said. "By that and the sword men shall know me. I have my own arms else; and I will take on myself the shame of this ludicrous casque, and redeem it in your name. And you shall have these in exchange." And he handed her his pouch and bade her what to do in the morning, and went away. He still had not kissed her mouth, nor had she offered it.
Now there is very little left to tell. On the morrow, when the roll of knights had been called, all eyes instinctively turned to the great gateway, by which the Rusty Knight had always come at the last moment. And as they looked they saw whom they expected, but not what they expected. For though his head was hidden in the rusty casque, and though he held the sword which all men covet, he was clad from neck to foot in arms and mail so marvelously chased and inwrought with red gold that his whole body shone ruddy in the sunshaft. And men and women, dazzled and confused, wondered what trick of light made him appear more tall and broad than they remembered him; so that he seemed to dwarf all other men. The murmur and the doubt went round, "Is it the Rusty Knight?"
Then in a voice of thunder he replied, "Ay, if you will, it is the Rusty Knight; or the Red Knight, or the Knight of the Royal Heart, or of the Hart-Royal; but by any name, the knight of the Proud Rosalind, who is the proudest and most peerless of all the maids of Sussex, as this day's work shall prove."
And none laughed.
The joust began; and before the Rusty Knight the rest went down like corn beaten by hail. And all men marveled at him, and all women likewise. And the young Queen Maudlin of Bramber, a prey to her whims, loved him as long as the tourney lasted. And when it was ended, and he alone stood upright, she rose in her seat and held out to him the crown of gold and flowers upon a silken pillow, crying, "You have won this, you unknown, unseen champion, and it is your right to give it where you will; and none will dispute her supremacy in beauty for ever." And as he strode and knelt to receive the crown she added quickly, "And I know not whether the promise has reached your ears which yesterday was made--that she who accepts the crown is to wed the victor, although he choose the Queen herself to wear it."
And she smiled down at him like morning smiling out of the sky; and her beauty was such as to make a man forget all other beauty and all resolutions. But Harding took the crown from her and touched her hand with the rusty brow of his casque and said, "A Queen will wear it, for my lady's fathers were once Kings of Amberley."
Then Maudlin stamped her foot as a butterfly might, and cried, "Where is this lady whom you keep as hidden as your face?"
And Harding rose and turned towards the gateway, and all turned with him; and into the arch rode Rosalind on the white hart. And she was clothed from her neck to the soles of her naked feet in a sheath of silver that seemed molded to her lovely body; and about her waist a golden girdle hung, set with green stones, and from her finger a great emerald shot green fire, and on her head a golden fillet lay in the likeness of close-set leaves with clusters of gleaming green berries that were other emeralds; and under it her glory of hair fell like liquid metal down her back and over the hart's neck, as low as her silver hem. And the hart with its splendid antlers stood motionless and proud as though it knew it carried a young Queen. But indeed men wondered whether it were not a young goddess. And so for a very few moments this carven vision of gold and silver and ivory and molten bronze and copper and green jewels stood in their gaze. And then Harding bore the crown to her and knelt, and stood up again and crowned her before them all; and laying his hand upon the white hart's neck, moved away with it and its beautiful rider through the gateway. And no one moved or spoke or tried to stop them. But by the footway over the water-meadows they went, and at the river's edge found Harding's broad flat boat with the bird's beak. And Harding said, "Will you come over the ferry with me, Proud Rosalind?"
And Rosalind answered, "What is your fee, Red Boatman?"
Then Harding answered, "For that which flows I take only that which flows."
And Rosalind, stooping of her own accord from the white hart's back, kissed him.
I shall be very uncomfortable, Mistress Jane, till you have sewed on my button.
* * *
FIFTH INTERLUDE
The milkmaids had not thought of their apples for the last hour, but now, remembering them, they fell to refreshing their tongues with the sweet flavors of fruit and talk.
Jessica: I cannot rest, Jane, till you have pronounced upon this story.
Jane: I never found pronouncement harder, Jessica. For who can pronounce upon anything but a plain truth or a plain falsehood? and I am too confused to extricate either from such a hotch-potch of magic as came to pass without the help of any real magician.
Martin: Oh, Mistress Jane! are you sure of that? Did not Rosalind's wishes come true, and can there be magic without a magician?
Jane: Her wishes came true, I know, both by the pool and by the ferry; but that the pool and the ferry were supernatural remains unproved. Because in both cases her wishes were brought about by a man. And if there was any other magician at all, you never showed him to us.
Martin: Dear Mistress Jane, where were your eyes? I showed you the greatest of all the magicians that give ear to the wishes of women; and when it is necessary to bring them about, he puts his power on a man and the man makes them come true. Which is a magic you must often have noticed in men, though you may never have known the magician's name.
Joscelyn: We have never noticed any magic whatever in men. And we don't want to know the magician's name. We don't believe in anything so silly as magic.
Martin: I hope, Mistress Joscelyn, there were moments in my story not too silly to be believed in.
Joscelyn: Silliness in stories is more or less excusable, since they are not even supposed to be believed. And is there still a Wishing- Pool on Rewell and a ferry at Bury?
Martin: The ferry is there, but Harding's hammer is silent. And where his shop stood is a little cottage where children live, who dabble in summer on the ferry-step. And their mother will run from her washing or cooking to take you over the water for the same fee that Wayland asked for shoeing a poor man's donkey or making a rich man's sword. And this is the only miracle men call for from those banks to-day; and if ever you tried to take a boat across the Bury currents, you would not only believe in miracles but pray for one, while your boat turned in mid-stream like a merry-go-round. So there's no doubt that the ferry-wife is a witch. But as for the Wishing-Pool, it is as lost as it was before the white hart led two lovers to discover it at separate times, and having brought them together passed with them and its secret out of men's knowledge. For neither it nor Harding nor Rosalind was seen again in Sussex after that day. And yet I can tell you this much of their fortunes: that whatever befell them wherever they wandered, he was a king and she a queen in the sight of the whole world, which to all lovers consists of one woman and one man; and their lives were crowned lives, and they carried their crown with them even when they came in the same hour to exchange one life for another. But this was only a long and cloudless reign on earth.
Jane: Well, it is a satisfaction to know that. For at certain times your story seemed so overshadowed with clouds that I was filled with doubts.
Joan: Oh, but Jane! even when we walk in the thickest clouds on the Downs, we are certain that presently some light will melt them, or some wind blow them away.
Joyce: Yes, it never once occurred to me to doubt the end of the story.
Jennifer: Nor to me. And so the clouds only kept one in a delicious palpitation, at which one could secretly smile, without having to stop trembling.<
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Jessica: Was it possible, Jane, that YOU could be deceived as to the conclusion of this love-story? Why, even I saw joy coming as plain as a pikestaff.
Martin: And I, with love for its bearer. For that magician, who touches the plainest things with a radiance, makes plain girls and boys look queens and kings, and plain staves flowering branches of joy. And in this case I can think of only one catastrophe that could have obscured or distorted that vision.
Two of the Milkmaids: What catastrophe, pray?
Martin: If Rosalind had refused to believe in anything so silly as magic.
The silence of the Seven Sleepers hung over the Apple-Orchard.
Joscelyn: Then she would have proved herself a girl of sense, singer, and your tale would have gained in virtue. As it stands, I should not have grieved though the clouds had never been dispersed from so foolish a medley of magic and make-believe.
Martin: So be it, if it must be so. We will push back our lovers into their obscurities, and praise night for the round moon above us, who has pushed three parts of her circle clear of all obstacles, and awaits only some movement of heaven to blow the last remnant of cloud from her happy soul. And because more of her is now in the light than in the dark, she knows it is only a question of time. But the last hours of waiting are always the longest, and we like herself can do no better than spend them in dreams, where if we are lucky we shall catch a glimpse of the angels of truth.
Like the last five leaves blown from an autumn branch, the milkmaids fluttered from the apple-tree and couched their sleepy heads on their tired arms, and went each by herself into her particular dream; where if she found company or not she never told. But Jane sat prim and thoughtful with her elbow in her hand and her finger making a dimple in her cheek, considering deeply. And presently Martin began to cough a little, and then a little more, and finally so troublesomely that she was obliged to lay her profound thoughts aside, to attend to him with a little frown. Was even Euclid impervious to midges?
"Have you taken cold, Master Pippin?" said Jane.
"I'm afraid so," he confessed humbly; "for we all know that when we catch cold the grievance is not ours, but our nurse's."
"How did it happen?" demanded Jane, rightly affronted. "Have you been getting your feet wet in the duckpond again?"
"The trouble lies higher," murmured Martin, and held his shirt together at the throat.
Jane looked at him and colored and said, "That is the merest pretense. It was only one button and it is a very warm night. I think you must be mistaken about your cold."
"Perhaps I am," said Martin hopefully.
"And you only coughed and coughed and kept on coughing," continued Jane, "because I had forgotten all about you and was thinking of something quite different."
"It is almost impossible to deceive you," said Martin.
"Oh, Master Pippin," said Jane earnestly, "since I turned seventeen I have seen into people's motives so clearly that I often wish I did not; but I cannot help it."
Martin: You poor darling!
Jane: You must not say that word to me, Master Pippin.
Martin: It was very wrong of me. The word slipped out by mistake. I meant to say clever, not poor.
Jane: Did you? I see. Oh, but--
Martin: Please don't be modest. We must always stand by the truth, don't you think?
Jane: Above all things.
Martin: How long did it take you to discover my paltry ruse? How long did you hear me coughing?
Jane: From the very beginning.
Martin: And can you think of two things at once?
Jane: Of course not.
Martin: No? I wish two was the least number of things I ever think of at once. Mine's an untidy way of thinking. Still, now we know where we are. What were you thinking about me so earnestly when I was coughing and you had forgotten all about me?
Jane: I--I--I wasn't thinking about you at all.
And she got down from the swing and walked away.
Martin: Now we DON'T know where we are.
And he got down from the branch and walked after her.
Martin: Please, Mistress Jane, are you in a temper?
Jane: I am never in a temper.
Martin: Hurrah.
Jane: Being in a temper is silly. It isn't normal. And it clouds people's judgments.
Martin: So do lots of things, don't they? Like leapfrog, and mad bulls, and rum punch, and very full moons, and love--
Jane: All these things are, as you say, abnormal. And I have no more use for them than I have for tempers. But being disheartened isn't being in a temper; and I am always disheartened when people argue badly. And above all, men, who, I find, can never keep to the point. Although they say--
Martin: What do they say?
Jane: That girls can't.
Martin began to cough again, and Jane looked at him closely, and Martin apologized and said it was that tickle in his throat, and Jane said gravely, "Do you think I can't see through you? Come along, do!" and opened her housewife, and put on her thimble, and threaded her needle, and got out the button, and made Martin stand in a patch of moonlight, and stood herself in front of him, and took the neck of his shirt deftly between her left finger and thumb, and began to stitch. And Martin looking down on the top of her smooth little head, which was all he could see of her, said anxiously, "You won't prick me, will you?" and Jane answered, "I'll try not to, but it is very awkward." Because to get behind the button she had to lean her right elbow on his shoulder and stand a little on tiptoe. So that Martin had good cause to be frightened; but after several stitches he realized that he was in safe hands, and drew a big breath of relief which made Jane look up rather too hastily, and down more hastily still; so that her hand shook, and the needle slipped, and Martin said "Ow!" and clutched the hand with the needle and held it tightly just where it was. And Jane got flustered and said, "I'm so sorry."
Martin: Why should you be? You've proved your point. If I knew any man that could stick to his so well and drive it home so truly, I would excuse him for ever from politics and the law, and bid him sit at home with his work-basket minding the world's business in its cradle. It is only because men cannot stick to the point that life puts them off with the little jobs which shift and change color with every generation. But the great point of life which never changes was given from the first into woman's keeping because, as all the divine powers of reason knew, only she could be trusted to stick to it. I should be glad to have your opinion, Jane, as to whether this is true or not.
Jane: Yes, Martin, I am convinced it is true.
Martin: Then let the men shilly-shally as much as they like. And so, as long as the cradle is there to be minded, we shall have proved that out of two differences unions can spring. My buttonhole feels empty. What about my button?
Jane: I was just about to break off the thread when you--
Martin: When I what?
Jane: Sighed.
Martin: Was it a sigh? Did I sigh? How unreasonable of me. What was I sighing for? Do you know?
Jane: Of course I know.
Martin: Will you tell me?
Jane: That's enough. (And she tried to break off the thread.)
Martin: Ah, but you mustn't keep your wisdom to yourself. Give me the key, dear Jane.
Jane: The key?
Martin: Because how else can the clouds which overshadow our stories be cleared away? How else can we allay our doubts and our confusions and our sorrows if you who are wise, and see motives so clearly, will not give us the key? Why did I sigh, Jane? And why does Gillian sigh? And, oh, Jane, why are you sighing? Do you know?
Jane: Of course I know.
Martin: And won't you give me the key?
Jane: That's quite enough.
And this time she broke off the thread. And she put the needle in and out of the pinked flannel in her housewife, and she tucked the thimble in its place. And then she felt in a little pocket where something clinked against her scissors, and Martin wat
ched her. And she took it out and put it in his hand. And his hand tightened again over hers and he said gravely, "Is it a needle?"
"No, it is not," said Jane primly, "but it's very much to the point."
Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard Page 27